


Butterflies

by HappinessIsBlau



Series: Fallout 4 Daily Writing Prompt Fills [1]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Gen, this is sad i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-17 03:35:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11267127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappinessIsBlau/pseuds/HappinessIsBlau
Summary: Seeing things made for children made her heart jump into her throat.





	Butterflies

**Author's Note:**

> This is another fill for the Daily Writing Prompts that I'm doing! I can't say that I'll post one every day, but I have quite a few of them to post so I hope it'll be regularly. Even though nobody asked or cares, "Butterflies" was the first day's prompt but I wrote a haiku and that just wouldn't do.

Seeing things made for children made Sophia’s heart jump into her throat. 

It used to be that she’d pick up toys and books for Shaun when she was grocery shopping or at a bookstore or something -- he might like something with dinosaurs or astronauts or animals or flowers or cooking or robots when he was older and who knew what unimaginable highs that inflation would climb to by the time he would be able to enjoy these things, so she always bought them when she saw them.

She had a bit of a packrat problem even then, to be honest. 

Now, it was so tragic to see things just sitting in the wasteland, unused for centuries. Last week she’d seen a rusted-out tricycle that she made Cait strap to her pack, and two days ago it was a half-deflated ball that she was sure could be blown back up with a little strategically placed duct-tape and patience. She collected these things not just for Shaun but for all of the kids that she’d naturally run across in her travels. 

It caught her off guard sometimes. Today she’d seen the cover of a book, ripped off and well-muddied on the floor of what used to be a bar. It looked like it’d been there 50 years, but it had the same sort of cutesy scientific-curiosity cover of so many other books she’d bought for Shaun when she could. This issue announced a special on butterflies and their wings -- the different colors, what the patterns meant, and more that was faded from the waterlogged page. 

Sophia picked it up and folded it carefully, hoping that it wouldn’t be completely destroyed. It didn’t make any sense to save something that was so unsalvageable and had no use at all. If Hancock had noticed her pick it up, he didn’t say anything and continued to hum along to something playing from her Pip-Boy radio as he scrounged through a chem cooler that’d been left behind by the raiders they’d just cleared out. 

She slid the piece of soggy paper into her pocket for safekeeping. If nothing else, she figured, she’d be able to explain to someone what a butterfly was.


End file.
